Some lectures note files are too large to be posted on this site. Instead you will see a link that takes you to the UCONN dropbox. You must be logged in the UCONN system to access these. The files will be on the server for 14 days. So download them ASAP.Lectures: T/TH 12:30-13:45 in Torrey Life Sciences (TLS) 301

Where are our offices? BioPharmacy building, N end of building touching TLS, around the corner from elevator (Dr. Lewis is on the 2nd floor and Dr. Goffinet on the 3rd). If you come from TLS and go up the stairs, enter floor and take hallway on your left.

Syllabus

Textbook and readings

Textbook: Willis and McElwain (2002): The evolution of plants. Oxford University Press. Additional readings from the primary literature will be assigned to some lectures through links in the schedule below.
This material (textbook and papers) is considered part of the lecture material and must be read for the midterm and final exams.

Announcements

Assignment 3: you have to attend one of the following two seminars:

Sir Peter Crane (Yale): The future of plants. Required attendance: Feb. 23rd. Teale lecture in Dood Center at 4PM.
Ricardo Rozzi (UNT & U Mag): Field environmental philosophy to confront biocultural homogenization in a rapidly changing world. April 5th, BP 130, 4PM
You have to tell us NEXT WEEK which one you will attend. You will have to write up a summary of the talk and submit that the week following the talk. If you have a legitimate reason that prevents you from attending a lecture, we will assign you a different task.

Links

"Whitish smoke in the movie are small droplets containing smreps (deliberate misspelling of word for male gametes).
The smreps in the droplets are still un-motile. When touch the
water, they begin to swim. In our experiments, misting with water is
trigger of the explosion. If antheridia were mature, the explosion
begin within few minutes. The event continued about for 10 min.
Intense light for video recording also seems to accelerate the
phenomenon. Each antheridia is deeply sunk in a cavity of
antheridiophore and there is a very small pore on the top of each
cavity. Swollen cells of surrounding tissue might cause the pressure
force. Cavers (1903) and Muggoch & Walton (1942) also discussed about the mechanism, but, I think no one examined about the detail mechanism of the phenomenon.
In Hiroshima, the season of mreps dispersal is Spring (April to May).
In our field observation, we detected many airborne smreps in the
sunny day after rain shower.
I do not have detail data about how many species of liverworts have
airborne mreps. At least, Asian species of Conocephalum (C.
japonicum) do in the same manner." M. Shimamura